Karin Nelson

Every weekday morning I drive to work at 7:20 AM. And every morning I see this gentleman on the street, walking down the road, rain or shine, with a white plastic shopping bag in hand. The white plastic shopping bag is always full. He walks along the road and picks up what everyone else threw out: wrappers, cans, bottles, styrofoam, plastics, papers, scraps of who knows what. He collects all the bits and pieces of garbage from the side of the roads, left on the way down, right on the way up, and probably brings it home and throws it out with his own trash once a week. By the time I meet him at 7:25, he is already on his way back up the hill, half way home, but the bag is already full. And I am wondering how his bag can be full, since he had been there the day before, and the day before that and the day before that and so on. Why is his bag always full, and he hasn’t even fishing his whole walk yet? Doesn’t that simply mean we’re all pigs, really? 

I’ve driven by the man for years, and I often I feel the need to stop and say “Thank you for cleaning up after us all…” but I never do. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll get yelled at. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll look at me funny and doesn’t even want to be talked to. Who knows. I am thankful he’s doing it, and I just hope that one day I’ll see him on his way back home with a bag that looks… empty.